Friday, August 19, 2016

We study the day before yesterday
in order that yesterday may not paralyze today, and that today may not paralyze
tomorrow.

Which is a fancy way of saying, what really happened does matter.[1] In a similar vein, John Dominic Crossan said
something like, if we get yesterday right, we have a chance of getting today
better. So, let’s look at yesterday.

Back in 1956, David Ben-Gurion, possibly struggling with his
conscience, confessed:

If I were an Arab leader, I would
never make terms with Israel. That is natural, we have taken their country.
Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not
theirs. We came from Israel,
it’s true, but that was two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There
has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Auschwitz, but was that their
fault? They only see one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why
should they accept that? [2]

“God promised it to us”?

Not so fast. More and more scholars, Jewish and humanist,
are questioning the exodus story and that “promise”. Rabbi David Wolpe raised just that provocative
question before his congregation of 2,200 at Sinai Temple in Westwood,
California back in 2001, saying:

After a century of excavations
trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no
conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved,
ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land
of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership.[3]

Teresa Watanbe continues:

The modern archeological consensus
over the Exodus is just beginning to reach the public. In 1999, an Israeli
archeologist, Ze’ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University set off a furor in Israel by
writing in a popular magazine that stories of the patriarchs were myths and
that neither the Exodus nor Joshua’s conquest ever occurred.[4]

Think about that. Outside
of the Jewish Bible, there is not one shred of evidence that Israel was ever in
Egypt to be rescued by God in the first place. Even in the Bible, the Pharaoh is not named,
nor is the context identified. There is
no record in Egyptian history of two million people suddenly making an exodus nor of a labor shortage when a third of its workforce disappeared almost
overnight. Disregarding the sociopathic image it makes of God sending plague
after plague upon innocent Egyptian families who had no power to do what Moses
demanded and discounting the fact that rivers just don’t suddenly part to allow
people to walk across, there has never been one piece of pottery, (the
archeologist best friend) found in the Sinai to indicate that a couple of
million Jews roamed around there for forty years. Nor is there any record
in Canaan that suddenly an invading army came and conquered them with or
without God’s blessings. In other words, it
was made up hundreds of years after it was supposed to have happened to
justify Israel’s presence and occupation of Canaanite land.

To be fair, I am not just doubting Jewish traditions.

I don’t believe stars ever roamed across the sky no matter
how many times we sing Star of Wonder,
Star of Night in our Christmas carols. Nor do I believe that virgins have
babies or that dead people suddenly rise up out of their graves in mass as
described in Matthew 27:52-53. In more
than forty years of preaching, I have never preached on that text, nor have I
been asked to.

And not to leave the Muslims out, I don’t believe that a
huge rock called out to a Muslim warrior saying “There is a Jew hiding behind
me, kill him,” as is recorded in the Hadith. Or that Mohammed heard about Jinns
(angels) from a tree, that Adam was ninety feet tall or that roosters crow and
donkeys bray because they see Satan.

What I DO believe is that there is a call for peace and justice
in all three Abrahamic religions. If we
took seriously the compassion mandate that we all share, if we accepted the
responsibility to feed the hungry, bring water to the thirsty and justice for
the oppressed, there would be little energy left to fight over our imagined
traditions.

[2] This
quote is documented in numerous sources. I refer to the book by Don Wagner and
Walt Davis, Zionism and the Quest for
Justice in the Holy Land. (Pickwick
Publications, 2014) p.21. And Chas W.
Freeman, Jr. America’s Continuing
Misadventures in the Middle East, (Just Word Books, 2016) p.48.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

About 30 years ago, Paul Findley, Congressman from
Illinois for twenty-two years, published a book, They Dare to Speak Out, in which he tells his own story of being
labeled untrustworthy by the Israeli lobby.
In spite of having a near perfect record of supporting everything Israel
had asked for, he began to feel uncomfortable with Israel’s brutal policies
toward the Palestinians. Without threatening
to diminish his commitment to Israel, he felt conscience bound to simply speak
with Yasser Arafat. Immediately AIPAC, The Anti-Defamation League and The
American Jewish Committee pounced, “Paul, Paul, he must go. He supports the PLO,”[1] and
poured money into his political defeat.

Fast forward three decades and I fear the same for my
Congressman, Hank Johnson. He is being criticized for speaking up for justice. Mondoweiss reports:

Representative Johnson offered
insightful comments on the diminishing prospects for a two-state resolution to
the Israeli-Palestinian issue, citing Israel’s ongoing settlement activity –
which violates international law and US policy going back decades – on occupied
Palestinian land in the West Bank, a point consistently made by both the Obama
and Bush administrations. He analogized this settlement to that of termites
hollowing out and undermining a structure, noting that settlement expansion has
made the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the occupied territories all
but impossible.[2]

Zionist scream, how dare he use Israel’s gobbling
up Palestinian land and resources and destroying people’s lives in the same
sentence with “termites”? They found his analogy offensive, too close to the
facts on the ground.

Note, for what it’s worth, he did NOT call settlers
termites.

Of course, It was no big deal when Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Chief of Staff
of the IDF, said in the early 1970s, “We have no solution…You (Palestinians) shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may
leave.” Or Rafel Eitan, a decade later also Chief of Staff of the IDF, said, “When
we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a
bottle.”[3]

I can only imagine what the Zionist would be screaming had
Hank Johnson said anything like that.

Hank Johnson is not reckless. He would not take an unpopular
position without checking it out for himself.
That is why he and several other congress people went on a fact finding
trip to Palestine to see what is happening there first hand. It is quite
obvious that he is courageous and puts truth above popularity. He
speaks out of a heart committed to oppressed people. And he is willing to commit
his life and career to correcting the injustice causing so much pain to so many
people, none of whom, I might add, can vote for him. That is what leadership does. I am proud that
he is my Representative.

When it comes to re-election time, Hank Johnson will get my
vote and a few dollars. I hope he will also have your support. May his tribe and
influence increase.

Thomas Are

August 3, 2016

[1]
Paul Finley, They Dare to Speak Out.
(Lawrence Hill Publishers, 1985) p. 17. In this powerful book, Finley
documents the influence of AIPAC on US government, military, college campus and
Christian Theology.

[2]
Mondoweiss, Support for Rep. Hank Johnson
Following mischaracterization of his remarks on Settlements.
Mondoweiss.net/2016/07.

[3]
Mondoweiss, The Palestinians, in Israeli
Officials’ Own Words. May 3, 1983

[4] This
quote is documented in numerous sources. I refer to the book by Don Wagner and
Walt Davis, Zionism and the Quest for
Justice in the Holy Land. (Pickwick
Publications, 2014) p.21. And Chas W.
Freeman, Jr. America’s Continuing
Misadventures in the Middle East, (Just Word Books, 2016) p.48.

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.